National Trust Day: Grain, Bricks, Seaweed and Ink – 60 years of the Portarlington Mill

Celebrate the Trust's conservation of this significant industrial building as part of our 60th anniversary celebrations.

21 May 2016 12:00 pm — 4:00 pm

Built in 1857 from locally quarried stone, the mill used steam driven machinery to prepared flour from grain grown around Geelong’s Bellarine Peninsula, then known as the ‘granary of the Colony’. The mill only operated for 17 years, closing in 1874, then operating as a brick works. In the later nineteenth century it was a factory, first processing seaweed for use as upholstery stuffing, later producing printing ink then artificial fertiliser. After conversion for residential use in the twentieth century as flats for holiday makers the building was condemned in 1962 but saved from demolition when it was purchased by the Shire of Bellarine and presented to the National Trust. Celebrate the Trust’s conservation of this significant industrial building as part of our 60th anniversary celebrations.